Morearticles

 
Menu
Search
 
January 18, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

More Commentary stories

COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2000
Flaws are part and parcel of democracy
By Hugh Cortazzi
LONDON -- How democratic are the world's so-called democratic countries? Can there be totally fair elections?
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2000
Solving the Kashmir dispute
By Ramesh Thakur
Three of the world's most protracted conflicts are in Asia: the Palestinian-Israeli crisis in West Asia, Kashmir in South Asia and Korea in East Asia. The world's interest is engaged in South Asia because of the fate of over 1 billion people, the importance of India as the world's most populous democracy...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2000
An era of U.S. superficiality
By Kenichi Ohmae
The year 2000 was marked with flamboyant, highly symbolic peace accords. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited North Korea; U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Vietnam. Most symbolically of all, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited Washington, D.C.,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2000
Falling victim to U.S.-Chinese diplomacy
By Philip Cunningham
A 46-year-old man named Zhang Hongbao from Harbin, China is facing an uncertain fate in a cramped U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services detention cell in the U.S. territory of Guam. On one hand he is just another illegal immigrant, joining thousands of other Chinese who have attempted to settle...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2000
The right man for the Korean problem
By John Barry Kotch
SEOUL -- Now that U.S. President Bill Clinton has decided not to go to Pyongyang before his term expires, Colin Powell, U.S. secretary of state-designate in the new Bush administration, inherits the Korean problem. With it comes a golden opportunity to do something that has eluded statesmen for 50 years:...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2000
Arms sales exacerbating global poverty
By Jayantha Dhanapala and Nitin Desai
At the U.N. Millennium Summit held in September, world leaders pledged both to "free our peoples from the scourge of war, whether within or between states" and to halve global poverty by 2015.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2000
Rare rumblings of dissent ruffle Dalai Lama's agenda
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
NEW DELHI -- Even as the Dalai Lama has softened his attitude toward China -- which annexed Tibet in 1950 and drove him to an Indian exile nine years later -- the spiritual leader of his people, who was honored with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, now finds himself facing dissent within his own community....
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2000
Popular challenger lets down many Thais
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
BANGKOK -- Thai voters dissatisfied with Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai's ruling Democrat Party will have a hard time turning to the alternative Thai Rak Thai Party of telecom tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra since public trust in the businessman has eroded.
COMMENTARY
Dec 28, 2000
The fight for liberty continues
By Doug Bandow
WASHINGTON -- We are entering a new year, the true third millenium. Unfortunately, the prospects for liberty do not burn bright. Human history is largely one of tyranny. The history of the last couple thousand years has been largely one of combatting tyranny.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2000
Protecting Japan's right to freedom of navigation
By Mark J. Valencia
HONOLULU -- Japan's economic security depends on safe and secure passage of its oil imports and trade through the Malacca/Singapore Straits and the South China Sea. Yet a recent upsurge in piracy, "creeping" jurisdiction and possible conflict between rival claimants in the Spratly Islands threaten these...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2000
Surging arms sales exacerbate Third World poverty
By Cesar Chelala
NEW YORK -- In recent public statements, world leaders such as the pope, U.S. President Bill Clinton and World Bank President James Wolfensohn have called attention to the urgent need to end world poverty. Almost lost among their proposals to remedy the situation was any mention of the need to curb arms...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2000
Signs of hope in Kashmir
By Gwynne Dyer
LONDON -- Eleven years of killing, over 50,000 dead, and the highest ratio of soldiers to civilians in the world, with a nuclear war between India and Pakistan as the payoff if things get out of hand: The conflict in Kashmir dwarfs every other global confrontation in its potential for harm. But the prospects...
Possibility of Nankai Trough megaquake now 80%, government panel reports
A map of the hypocentral region of an anticipated Nankai Trough earthquake
Crashed Jeju jet’s black box failure shows decadeslong gap in power rules
The flight data recorder retrieved from Jeju Air flight 2216, which crashed killing 179 people in December. Black boxes holding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders for the flight stopped recording four minutes before the disaster, South Korea's transport ministry said Saturday.
Hanshin quake sparked changes to Japan's disaster response policies
Self-Defense Forces members search for victims in Kobe's Nagata Ward on Jan. 28, 1995, in the wake of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
Fuji TV scrutinized over handling of allegations against ex-SMAP member Nakai
Fuji TV in the Odaiba waterfront area in Tokyo in 2021
Yokozuna Terunofuji retires after injury-plagued career
Terunofuji won 10 titles in sumo's top division during his career.
Possibility of Nankai Trough megaquake now 80%, government panel reports
A map of the hypocentral region of an anticipated Nankai Trough earthquake
With new regional party, Shinji Ishimaru touts rebirth
Shinji Ishimaru announces details of his new regional party at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Nippon Steel’s case against Biden probably unwinnable, attorneys argue
U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, Pennsylvannia, in 2019. Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel face significant legal challenges in their case against the United States.
Japanese companies rush to up English-language disclosures in 2025
The Tokyo Stock Exchange will soon require some companies to publish their financials in English in addition to Japanese.
Tokyo plans to subsidize epidurals, but are hospitals ready?
Epidurals during childbirth have long been uncommon in Japan, though they have been growing more popular in recent years.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go
By Kazuaki Nagata and Richard Meyer

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’
SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER